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Muppet Wiki talk:Cecil the List
Cecil Needs Love! Well, while I was trying to add text here (browser ate it), Danny already moved some more items! Yay! Basically, now that time has passed, it's worth re-examining the list, seeing what questionable/unsourced items remain, moving those which have been renamed already (Molly, Eugene, though the latter may have to become a disambig, etc.), and perhaps looking at the related pages (Category:Unnamed Characters, The Prefixed List, and Archibald's List). New questionable items have cropped up since then (Pierre the Reservationist, The Scientist), and a few were overlooked the first time around (doing research on Laugh-In, Ernestine the Telephone Operator now seems inaccurate). At this point, I'm willing to concede Henderson the Guard on the condition that it be Henderson (guard). In a case like "Molly the Mail Lady" where the primary address is the name alone, "Molly" makes sense, but if a character is named solely in one brief line of throwaway dialogue and is otherwise identified in credits, book adaptations, and so forth by role only ("Guard"), I argue that for the sake of accuracy and to better inform readers, both terms should be included, if without the "the". Same thing with the (yet to be added) Babe character of the cat, identified by Mrs. Hoggett as "Duchess" but in credits and by narrator as "The Cat." Also, Brad created a name policy somewhere (Sandbox probably needs to be cleaned up as well). For newcomers and as a reminder to old hands, that might possibly be worth linking to from the FAQ. Andrew Leal (talk) 23:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC) :Looking through the list, one that leaps at me is Grungetta the Grouch. Guillermo moved it, and in general I trust him, but in checking album credits, articles, and online sources, and notably including Sesame Workshop's pages, she's only referred to as "Grungetta." Pam Arciero's press release bio (repeated in several articles and once on Sesame Workshop) uses "Grundgetta Grouch," but absolutely the only place to use "the Grouch" is, well, us! So, we can either move to Grungetta, or if we decide the performer is the best source, to "Grungetta Grouch" (though Sesame Workshop and print books use the spelling sans "d"). Andrew Leal (talk) 23:56, 29 July 2006 (UTC) Sources I'm just curious, but what constitutes as a "good" source. If official merchandise isn't good enough, and official books are in question, and some people have even turned their nose up at names in scripts, I'd also add to that list that credits are a poor source of information. They're often wrong, they omit information, make spelling mistakes and are extremely inconclusive. The best example of the best sources would have to be on screen mentions, or even better, the character's name in print on screen. Thoughts? -- Scott (talk) 18:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC) :I disagree about merchandise and books not being good enough. I've mostly been the one who's sorted characters into "sourced" and "unsourced", and I've considered anything a source -- on-screen, books, records, anything. I think if there's one official printed source of a "the" name, then that's good enough for me, unless there's a reason to doubt that source. -- Danny (talk) 18:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC) ::PS. Some examples of what I've put in the "sourced" list: Gladys the Cow, Hoots the Owl, Wolfgang the Seal and Leroy the Donkey are all from coloring books, or LP/CD covers. -- Danny (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC) :::Who says official merchandise and scripts aren't good enough? Did I miss the script name debate while traveling? I only raised the question when there seemed to be contradictions within those sources (and Danny settled that re Bruno). If we're going to question credits as well, we might as well abandon the whole enterprise. But honestly, I think we're doing a pretty good job. So far, also, I think we've only found two character names in on-screen credits (as opposed to IMDb or other transciptions of credits) that are completely wrong or misspelled, those for Colander Stenchman and Mr. Barry Wolfe. Any others? Andrew Leal (talk) 18:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC) ::::I think our basic assumption is that everything official is good enough -- credits, merchandise, press releases, whatever. It's just when things contradict each other that we have to make a judgement call about which one seems more likely. -- Danny (talk) 18:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC) :::::I don't just mean credits that we've looked at in Muppet movies, I mean credits in general. IMDb has a whole section dedicated to mistakes and funny gags in the credits of movies. Credits just aren't the very best source for names. But sometimes they're better than nothing. -- Scott (talk) 18:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC) :::::::I don't get your point. Yeah, credits are fallible in general, but less so than IMDb. And the issue isn't whether movies as a whole have credit mistakes, but which Muppet/Henson productions do. To my mind, if the credits say Beth Bear and Yolanda Rat, that's good enough for now, unless we find out from a performer that Beth is actually Bethany Anastasia Bruin the IIII. The main problem is actually because a lot of these come from shows where there are no character specific credits, so a lot of "thes" or name spellings just pop up. So I'm confused. Are you suggesting if a "the" or any other name is in screen credits, it should rename unsourced unless we have a "Yolanda Rat" restaurant name tag or whatnot? (And I should note that I'm enjoying this discussion, so I'm not being defensive or argumentative this time; resting up at home and health is improving, yay) Andrew Leal (talk) 19:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC) ::::::::Well, I think that raises the question of what constitutes a "real" name. We just had that come up in Talk:Prairie Dawn's Mom. Leslie Carrara calls her "Delta", but is that just for her, or is it in the scripts? If it's in the script as "Delta", but all the official materials call her "Prairie Dawn's Mom", then which is real? -- Danny (talk) 19:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC) Bruno the Trashman I finally found my copy of The Wisdom of Big Bird. On page 13, Caroll Spinney makes a brief reference, "I'm sure helped me to skate as Big Bird and Bruno the Trashman." However, in page 62, where he discusses the character in detail, there's just "I called the trashman Bruno," "I kept Bruno in motion," "poor Bruno," etc. And as noted Sesame Street Unpaved (book) uses just Bruno in the profile but "the Trashman" in the end cast notes. In my opinion, Spinney's book suggests plain Bruno as the main name, and unpaved is at best inconclusive. So that leaves these two sources mentioned by Michael: "a trivia question about him in the Sesame Street 35 Years Anniversary Game listed him as Bruno the Trashman, and Caroll Spinney's biography page in the last Muppet Show Fan Club newsletter refers to Bruno as Bruno the Trashman." And I'm not sure if a trivia game and a newsletter are good enough. I'm sure there *are* sources for the name, probably in the illustrated books, but I think it might be worth either noting or moving back to questionable for now. Andrew Leal (talk) 18:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC) :Also, have we decided what to do with Gonzo the Great? Since movie credits use mostly "The Great Gonzo" and books and Muppet Show dialogue vacillate between the two, I'm in favor of moving to just Gonzo, as suggested (more pages link to the current Gonzo redirect than either variant anyway). Andrew Leal (talk) 18:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC) ::I think the evidence for Bruno the Trashman is pretty clear. Spinney calls him "Bruno the Trashman" on page 13, and in my opinion that's all we need. We don't need for the character to always be called that -- Spinney doesn't say "Oscar the Grouch" every time he mentions that character. He says "Oscar the Grouch" a few times, and then "Oscar" everywhere else. It's the same with "Kermit the Frog". We have three clear, unequivocal sources for "Bruno the Trashman", and that's plenty. ::I think you could go ahead and move Gonzo's page. You could post a note on his talk page about the move. -- Danny (talk) 18:38, 1 June 2006 (UTC) Discussion So in the case where, say for example Dorothy, pops up as another character name, are we in agreement that the article title should be Dorothy (goldfish)? Because Dorothy is hew name (not Dorothy the Goldfish) and "goldfish" describes her in a way that disambiguates between the other hypothetical Dorothy. -- Scott (talk) 01:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC) :Yes, that's how we'll do it. We actually do have another Dorothy at the moment... -- Danny (talk) 02:18, 30 May 2006 (UTC) ::Yeah, but we don't need a disambig for that as Elmo's Dorothy is happy just being Dorothy and the other one is different by being Dorothy Gale. Cool, I'm glad this is working out. -- Scott (talk) 02:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC) :::Although I have seen some of the articles about The Muppets' Wizard of Oz link to Dorothy and it goes to the fish not the girl. So either a disambiguation page for Dorothy Gale and Dorothy (goldfish) is in order, or someone should check the "what links here" for Dorothy closely and do clean up. -- Brad D. (talk) 03:25, 30 May 2006 (UTC) ::::Yeah, that's definitely a case of linking properly. I'll clean it up now. -- Scott (talk) 03:27, 30 May 2006 (UTC) :::::Also, FYI there exists two other Dorothys -- Dorothy (Muppet*Vision 3-D) and Dorothy BoVine. -- Brad D. (talk) 05:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC) Renaming: No source, rename The following items are from Cecil's "No source, should probably be renamed" section. I'm going to start renaming these pages to reflect what we've found. These items don't belong on Cecil anymore, but I'm parking them here so we can remember why the pages were renamed. Obviously, if information comes up later to justify one of these names, we can always switch them back. -- Danny (talk) 01:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC) Abelardo the Dragon (disambig) - A Mexican Sesame Street character would not have an English surname like that... Alfred the Duck- identified by Sesame Workshop as "Alfred Duck" here. Angry the Dwarf- no source, made up Bernie the Easter Bunny (disambig) - Named simply "Bernie" on The Muppet Show, Episode 120: Valerie Harper Bill the Frog (disambig)- identified in screen credits as "Bill (frog)" Bruce the Fox - referred to as simply "Bruce" on The Muppet Show Episode 102: Connie Stevens Buster the Crab (disambig) - just "Buster" on The Muppet Show Episode 504: Shirley Bassey Butch the Tiger - just "Butch" on the Muppet Show guest starring Jonathan Winters Cheerful the Dwarf- no source, made up Chester the Rat- credited as "Chester Rat" Dog the Dinosaur (disambig) - just "Dog" in dialogue and credits Dorothy the Goldfish - Sesame Workshop press releases just say "Dorothy" -- ex: "Children explore along with Elmo and Elmo’s pet goldfish and alter ego, Dorothy...", Elmo's official bio says "He is curious about everything and loves his pet goldfish, Dorothy." Dunnard the Camera-Man Hog- comes from questionable contributor, article text claims character is an aardvark puppet Eugene the Mink- renamed "Eugene," as name given in Steve Whitmire interview, "mink" identification from earlier Muppet newsgroup post, never linked together save by fans Fearful the Dwarf - no source, made up Flaubert the Anteater - Referred to as "Flaubert" on Muppet Treasure Island Fred the Dragon (disambig) - Fuzzyface says "Hi Fred!" in a 1969 sketch of Sesame Street; there's no source that he is a dragon Gawain the Frog- Name from The Frog Prince but never addressed as "the frog" and no on-screen credit, same as Hector George the Rock (disambig) - identified as "George" during his only appearance Gil the Frog- credited as "Gil (frog)" Gladys the Cafeteria Lady (disambig) - identified as "Gladys" on The Muppet Show Grizzy the Grouch- listed in credits only as "Grizzy," and identified only as "Grizzy" or once "Grouch Girl Grizzy" in presskit, ditto for storybook Harold the Woodpecker - Only referred to as simply "Harold" on The Muppet Show Episode 220: Petula Clark (At the Dance) Hector the Frog- Name from The Frog Prince but never addressed as "the frog" and no on-screen credit, same as Gawain Jill the Frog- credited as "Jil (frog)" Jojo the Dog - identified as Jojo on Jim Henson Hour Secrets of the Muppets Lance the Director- no source, made up based on occupation Lovey the Dwarf- no source, made up Lydia the Tattooed Pig - referred to as "Lydia"; the song says "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"; "Tattooed Pig" has never been used anywhere. Only appearance in Episode 102: Connie Stevens. Martha the Rock (disambig) - identified as "Martha" in her only appearance Martin the Producer- listed in credits only as "TV Producer," name "Martin" mentioned by Miss Piggy Masterson the Rat- credited as "Masterson Rat" Max the Dog- generally identified in source text and on-screen as "Max, the Grinch's Dog." Morty the Agent - referred to as "Morty" by Rick Moranis in Muppets Tonight Phil the Lawyer (disambig) - referred to as "Phil" by Rick Moranis on Muppets Tonight Proud the Dwarf- no source, made up Sad the Dwarf- no source, made up Shakes the Rat- no screen credit listing, introduced as "Shakes" in dialogue by Bubba Surprised the Dwarf- no source, made up Tatooey the Rat- credited as "Tatooey Rat" Troy the Rat- no credited name, referred to in dialogue as "Troy" Winny the Cafeteria Bird - named "Winny" on Episode 408: Arlo Guthrie, which was her only major appearance Yolanda the Dancing Cheese - named "Yolanda" in Episode 208: Steve Martin Yorick the Skull- named to disambig from Sam and Friends Yorick, formerly listed as "Yorick (Muppet Show)" :: It's "later" and I just came with some information to justify one of these names -- see Talk:Baab. -- Brad D. (talk) 03:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)